How the Holy Spirit Shapes Our Lives—One Skill at a Time

Russ Ewell 

Growing spiritually is one of the great blessings of being a Christian. Blessing meaning empowerment in many ways because when we’re blessed by God or we’re blessed by another human being, there’s an element of that that’s meant to empower us. Not just to give us things, but to give us the ability to be something and to become something. And that’s what growth is about. My name is Russ Ewell and today I’m going to be having some guests with us in just a moment.

I have, of course, Mike Query, who always joins us to co-host the podcast. And then we’ll have Christian and Michelle Giron, who one of the things they’re going to bring to us today is the insight and awareness of what people who are younger, certainly younger than me, but younger than a lot of our listeners, millennials and in particular Generation Z, what they’re going through after five years of a pandemic, four years of a pandemic, depending upon how you want to look at it. What are they going through and what do they need. What we’re offering today, from the scriptural point of view, is that what they need, as well as what all people need, whether you’re a Gen X, a Baby Boomer, a Millennial, whatever you may be, maybe you don’t want to be in a generation, that’s cool too. We’re offering that God has given us extraordinary power to help us grow. And so the first thing we want to do is set the table by talking about how God helps us grow. What does he do? What does he do for us? What does he give us?

How does he work with us? You know, an interesting passage of the Bible, it speaks to leaders, but it’s true for all people. It’s 2 Corinthians 4-5. And he’s talking to a leader and he says, as Paul writes to the Spirit of God, 

But as for you, be clear headed in every situation. Stay calm and cool and steady. Endure every hardship without flinching. Do the work of evangelists fulfill the duties of your ministry. 

There’s four qualities that you could call spiritual life skills. Clear headed, calm, cool, steady. I’m quoting the Amplified version of the Bible. In that same book, 2 Timothy 1 and verse 67 of the Amplified, it says,

But he has given us a spirit of power and of love and a sound judgment and personal discipline. Abilities that result in calm, well-balanced mind and self-control. Now there’s a lot there in 2nd Timothy 1, 6-7. We’re not going to focus on Timothy and the unique gifts he received. We’re going to focus on what it’s telling us about, which is the Spirit of God. What does the Spirit of God do for us? The Spirit of God does not make us timid. The Spirit of God does not make us cowardly.

The Spirit of God does not make us afraid. In fact, the Spirit of God says it’s going to produce power in your life, love in your life, sound judgment in your life, and personal discipline in your life. In other words, God is always trying to help us become who we need to be so that we can do the things that He is destined us to do. And if you look at the scriptures, I think they’re pretty clear about every single human being has not only an opportunity for salvation, but an opportunity to fulfill a unique purpose. 

And so what we landed on really, if you look at this whole list from these scriptures, and you can look in a lot of places, you can find a lot of things about skills that we need and God will give us to be able to achieve our life goals, to be able to fulfill our purpose. 

There’s 10. Clear headed, calm, cool, steady, powerful, loving, sound judgment, personal discipline, well-balanced mind, self-control.

Who wouldn’t want those? I know I want them and I don’t yet have them. But how do we get them? Well, the Bible says in Galatians 5:16, let me emphasize this. I’m using the Passion translation. 

Let me emphasize this. As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. 

What the Bible is telling us in this unique translation, which definitely is not a word-for-word translation, but it uses an almost meaning for meaning, but mostly it’s telling us emotionally what the Bible is trying to get across to us. If you prefer the NASB or the NIV or any of those translations, that’s great. And you should keep those right next to you. But this one allows us to experience the emotional meaning and depth of what the Bible wants us to hear, what God wants us to hear. Galatians 5:16.

Let me emphasize this, as you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. 

The Holy Spirit’s work in our life is dynamic, it’s moving, it’s powerful, it’s doing more than just allowing us to survive, it’s encouraging us to thrive and flourish. The Bible goes on in Galatians 5-17 in the Passion Translation, 

when your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit, you hinder him from living free within you. 

One of the things I realized about my life is I don’t always allow God to have free reign in my life. I don’t allow him to operate without limits. How does God help us grow? By us giving him no limitations in what he does in our life. Putting nothing in the path of him trying to help us grow and become who we’re meant to be.

When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit, you hinder Him from living free within you. And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you. So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life and the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But, when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law but soaring above it.

In other words, when God is allowed to work in your life through the Holy Spirit, we’re no longer focused on our behavior. We’re actually experiencing the transformative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we read the Bible and as we pray. It makes us different and it gives us those 10 skills, those 10 qualities I mentioned earlier. And let’s finish with this, Galatians 5 22. 

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love. 

That’s the passion translation.

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love and all its varied expressions. Joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, that’s goodness, faith that prevails, that’s faithfulness, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities for they’re meant to be limitless.

In other words, never set the law. Never make your life about behavior and surviving as a Christian. Make your life about allowing God’s Holy Spirit to work in your life without hindrance, without limits, and that He will use His power to produce limitless growth in your life. As I’m praying and hoping, He produces limitless growth in my life. 

Today, we hope to be able to produce, believe it or not, three or four podcasts for you that we want to break up and make a little bit shorter, a little bit briefer. And this is just to get us set with how God helps us grow. In the following podcasts, the ones you’ll get, and they’ll drop at different times, we’re going to talk about what are spiritual life skills. What are these skills and abilities God wants to help us grow in so we can fulfill every aspect of what he has planned for our life and so that we can handle everything that comes at us.

The second podcast, how does spiritual life skills change our lives? How does this change our lives? What does it make possible? 

And then finally, how do we teach spiritual life skills? A lot of times we’re in relationships as Christians or as people just in general, whether you believe, you may be an atheist and say, I want to listen to this because I want to figure out how to get some of these skills going in my life. But how do we teach? Most of time we don’t think about teaching, but almost all growth comes from teaching. Someone’s got to teach us or we teach each other. And so, we’ll be back in our next podcast with a guest that I mentioned and let’s just consider that coming up, part two. Thanks for listening. Deep Spirituality, don’t forget to subscribe and don’t forget to like everything you can for us to help us be able to reach as many people as quickly as possible to bring inspiration into everyone’s life. 

Russ Ewell 

What are spiritual life skills? If you listened to our previous episode about how God helps us grow, it’s important for us to know what’s he trying to help us grow in and why is he trying to help us grow in it. And so in this particular episode of our podcast, I have Christian and Michelle Giron with me and Mike Query, who’s always on board to talk about what are spiritual life skills. And let me read this and then we’ll get into it. Galatians 5:22 in the Passion translation, 

But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions. Joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. 

And so I want to go ahead and go to the Girons and I’ll start with you Christian and then Michelle can jump on in or if you want to reverse it you can, doesn’t matter to me. What do you think about this whole idea of spiritual life skills? Like how does that strike you? Do you think it’s important? Do you think it’s valuable? And what do you, how do you see them and how do you define them in your own?

Christian Giron

I mean, yeah, I think they’re super important. I think having ADHD myself, there’s a lot of limitation I kind of already have mentally, you know? So I think there’s so many deficits I feel like I face on a day-to-day basis. Some I think about, some I don’t. So when I think of the life skills, I think honestly, the Bible has helped me develop like that scripture, a lot of life skills, like the ability to love. I don’t think I’m anywhere near where I need to be, but there’s patience, self-control.

There’s so many things that I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have relationship with God. So I think it’s super important to have life skills because I think there’s so many things going on and we need friends. I need people to point out truth in me that a lot of times I’m not aware of what’s really going on and how I’m doing. So I think everybody, no matter where you’re at in life, no matter how self aware you think you are, I think everyone can benefit from having this life skills for sure. So.

Russ Ewell 

What are your thoughts, Michelle?

Michelle Giron

Yeah, no, I agree. As we’ve been doing these and reading the self-awareness and listening to the podcast and stuff, we’ve been having more conversations and I’m just really grateful for all the help I’ve gotten throughout the years in college and even now being a mom and learning how to juggle mom, working jobs. I’m really grateful for all the help and I feel like they’re needed too because you were sharing this the last podcast, but even the limitations we come up against with ourselves, but that God helps us go further than what we think we’re capable of. And I know me and Christian both have felt that of, you know, he shared his ADHD. I also have ADHD, but the limitations that we have, but I’m just grateful because I look at how God’s already, you know, how far he already has and what’s to come. And so I think the spiritual life skills is really helpful because we all have our limitations, but I feel like God pushes you past what you think you’re capable of doing. So. 

Christian Giron

She said that way better.

Russ Ewell 

That’s awesome. So Mike, Mike, when you’ve been working on this, how would you define spiritual life skills?

Mike Query

How would I define spiritual life skills.

Russ Ewell

Yeah, like what do you see them as yourself?

Mike Query 

I mean, think, man, how did Michelle just kind of put it in pretty good way? Like, God helping us grow beyond maybe what we feel like we’re capable of on our own or what our limitations are. I think meant to be limitless, like it says in Galatians, that’s really encouraging to me. I mean, I think when I think of the need for life skills, think of, you know, working on this, talking about these skills a lot has made me think about college a lot because I think in that period of my life was when I was most… raw, needing training, felt like all over the map.

I went to Santa Cruz for college and one of my apartments I lived in was off campus and it was like right where highway one, which is like a coastal drive, meets the city. So when I would get really overwhelmed with school, because I had a hard time focusing, I was kind all over the map doing stuff I shouldn’t have been doing instead of studying, I would get in my car, I’m just going to leave it like that for this podcast, but I would get in my car, had a green 97 Integra and I love that car. But man, would just hop in the car and I would just drive down highway one and just like look at the ocean. And it felt like I’m just trying to drive away from my problems right now because I just felt so overwhelmed. I needed so much help. I didn’t really know how to go about, you know, getting better grades or dealing with my feelings. You know, I had a lot of just emotions I didn’t know how to sort through. 

So I think that’s like a visual I have because this idea of life skills, I think there are limitations in character, kind of walls I was hitting and I didn’t know how to get through them. And I didn’t really have the spiritual or biblical foundation at the time to know how to work through them. you know, we’ll talk at some point later, like one of the life skill topics in particular that stood out to me was about time management organization. Or I should say rather, that was the one that I was tasked with tackling because my wife Amy said, know, hey, I think that would be good for you to take on there. A little time management organization might help our home. But I’m just like, man, God helps our hearts and our spiritual lives. And from that, like he has our lives grow. And I think that’s kind of like the big thing I took away from all of these. Like there’s a spiritual need that God can meet. And from that, our lives can just flourish in a lot of different ways. So that’s my visual. And then that’s kind how I’ve been thinking about these as we been working on.

Russ Ewell 

Yeah, so when all three of you are talking, basically you’re saying that life skills, and the reason we call them spiritual is because we’re coming from a biblical point of view and we’re coming from an extraordinary power point of view, meaning God has extraordinary power that he puts at work in our life. Ephesians 1:19 teaches us that. And the reason being a Christian helps you get these skills is because God is at work in you, helping you get them. But let’s not be fooled. Social emotional learning in schools is also about helping people develop these and you don’t have to be a Christian to develop life skills. It’s just you don’t and I know people might like to make that sound like that but that’s just not true. In fact, there’s a lot of things you can learn that if you pay attention to writing in the world, to YouTubes in the world, to podcasts in the world, you can learn a lot about it and so you don’t have to limit yourself to you know just the things we’re talking about. 

Both Christian and Michelle have experience in education and teaching and and being support educators in classrooms in their life. And so I think an interesting thing for you guys to talk about, maybe if we zero in a little bit, if you can think back to when you were growing up, what were some of the things, who were some of the people or what were some of the situations where you actually learned? I think you both played sports, right? And for me, I was listening to Meet the Press and a Senator from Michigan was on, Senator Slotkin, she’s a woman Senator from yeah, like as I said the state of Michigan, but she talked about the fact that one of the reasons she was a leader is because she played sports growing up. I think she said she played three or four sports and that those had made her capable of being a leader. I think it’d be good for you to share because I think we have listeners out there that may be in high school, that may be in college, that are maybe, are perhaps frustrated with the things you mentioned, limitations. I heard the word overwhelmed. What were some of the things that happened to you along the way? Because you alluded to the fact that you got a lot of help. What were some of the things that helped you along the way, and what were some of those first skills that people helped you develop that began to give you hope that, I can do even more than I think I can.

Christian Giron 

I mean, yeah, I can probably put out a list. the one that I, I mean, there’s several. I think the biggest one I can think of is I was in junior college at DVC and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. So I was taking, you know, intro classes and my mentor came over. He’s an older guy that’s kind of helping me navigate life. He came on campus and he was like, hey, show me your schedule. I want to help you know how to balance everything. And I looked at him and I was like, what do you mean my schedule?

And he was like, you know, like, how do you know what you’re doing next, what you’re doing today? I was like, I don’t know. And then he was like, well, how do you function? I was like, I don’t know, whatever happens next, happens next. I was like, I was looking at him like he speaking a foreign language. And he was like, okay, like, we’re going to sit down. Here’s how you do it. Here’s how to think about it. Here’s how to like, and I never was taught that, I don’t know that’s going to be bad way, but that was probably 2012. So 12, 13 years of, I’m pretty much, mean, Michelle knows, every day I’m on my Google Calendar. If something changes, I’m like, I adjust it so I know what’s happening because otherwise I’m like, I’m all over the place, you know? So I think that’s the big thing that helped me a lot was knowing how to balance everything. Otherwise, I would probably not be getting done. 

Russ Ewell 

Well, let me ask you a question about that. You said you’re all over the place. I think a lot of us relate to that, but just for people listening, because I think some people may go, they may not think they’re all over the place, but they may be all over the place. What does all over the place look like? I’m assuming it looks like you’re being controlled by events rather than living your life. Would that be accurate?

Christian Giron 

Yeah, it’s living by what I feel, if that makes sense. Living by my emotions. Like, I feel like doing this. So I’ll go do it without thinking what are the implications. Usually that was basketball. 

Russ Ewell 

I can relate to that.

Christian Giron

So I’ll go to the gym and I’ll go to the… Yeah, I’ll go play. have some time. I’m not even kidding. Five hours later, was like, oh, dang it, I had homework. So I mean, all over the place is like…

It’s the emotions part, but it’s also just doing what I feel like doing when I want to do it. So selfishness in a way, you know, is just choosing what I want. There was a lot of ramifications for that that I wasn’t aware of. It helped me know like, okay, where do I need to spend my time? What’s prioritizing things? I still get help with that today. I have lot of different things. Like, what do I prioritize? What’s the best? So I think that’s what I would mean by that.

Russ Ewell 

So when I’m listening to you, what I’m hearing you say is that a life skill is something that helps you manage your emotions. 

Christian Giron

No, definitely.

Russ Ewell 

And that if you don’t have something that, it may be time management. But it may be something else. There are other life skills that we went crazy and as I created the matrix for it and I over complicate everything. But there’s 20 different things in there, 20 different items and 20 different qualities. And so some of you may go, well, I don’t have a problem with time management. But the point to learn from what Christian’s saying is that when you develop a skill, it can help you manage something in your life. It might be your emotions. It might be your relationships. It might be the complexity of what you’re studying in school. You, I know you, have a background in being a school psychologist, which means that a lot of your work is even helping people evaluate where they are, strengths and weaknesses, and how they attack this thing. And so maybe you can speak to that. And I’d like you to speak really to not just our younger people, but just people in general, because older, those who are older, I’m older than all you guys maybe combined, I can’t remember. But the thing about, I think a lot of older people is they think they’ve got all their skills together because they’ve managed to get their career going, get a home, etc. But then a kid comes along, or a second kid comes along, or a third kid comes along, or even retirement comes along. And that’s when we’re challenged to develop new ones. So maybe you can talk about the mentality people have, the challenges they face, and why looking at this subject is so important.

Michelle Giron

Yeah, well, the word I kept thinking about, even with your last question, was developing resilience and not quitting. Because I think and the self-awareness piece, honestly, that we just looked at of looking at, OK, where am I at in my life? I think it’s easy to just be like, let’s just in the stage of life that we’re in with working and having a kid, it’s like, OK, how do we survive?

Russ Ewell 

Yeah, 100%.

Michelle Giron

That’s like not what God has planned for us. But I don’t always look at, I think back to college and I’m like, I actually had the same mindset in college. It was different, like, you know, but I kind of was like, how do I just survive through this final? And I end up missing a lot. Like, how is God currently, what is God currently trying to teach me and what do I need to develop in this stage of life? And even to answer your question, the first one. I was thinking of resilience because I feel like it actually started back when my parents are very hard workers. And I do feel like that’s something that I was like looking back on the life skill. Resilience is a life skill and pushing through things and working through things. So I feel like I can see along the way God teaching me different life skills and that being one of them. But I think it’s important, yeah, what you said at every stage, because I feel in a different way, I’m now able to do some of the things I did in college easily, but now I’m in a different stage of life where I’m trying to manage, you know, a job and a kid in the home and so it’s humility, I think is big, asking for help. I think you said this, allowing people to train you, allowing God to train you. And that that’s actually like the blessings come in that too, because I also look at all the training, it’s only benefited, right? It doesn’t always feel good when I’m getting help or when I feel like it’s more vulnerable to when you’re like, I don’t know how to life. I always look at it afterwards and I’m like, my gosh, look at all the blessings that came from it or how we grew out of it. And so I don’t know if that answered your question, but.

Russ Ewell 

Oh, it totally answers the question. You know, I was watching a CEO on a podcast and he said, I have ADHD. And he goes, what I am is a professional quitter. And I went, wow, that’s intense. But it wasn’t like, I don’t think people with ADHD are the only professional quitters. I think professional quitting is a profession. It takes all kinds, all types, all colors, all languages. But

what you just addressed with resilience is a skill which is, and I don’t like failing and I don’t like losing, but that’s an essential part of developing the character that will eventually get you to a point where you can win. And so I think it’s a really good point you’re making. So in this podcast, what we want to do is keep it simple for everybody. I think what we’ve learned talking to Christian and Michelle, talking to Mike, is a spiritual life skill is something that allows you to be empowered in the area of your life where you may feel there’s some weakness or just an area where you may not even be a weakness. It may be an area of your life where you want to get better because your goals have grown. As Michelle talked about, I remember one of my best friends, close friends in life or really a mentor in life was Al Baird and is Al Baird. And he said to me once, said, know, Russ, the thing about life is that wherever you are at today, in whatever circumstances you’re in, you’ve never been there before. And so, if you’re 70 or 75 or 55, you’ve never been there before. So there’s skills that you haven’t developed well enough, and that’s why the series can be good for you. If you’re young in life and you’re in high school or you’re in college and you flunked a class or you’re doing bad or you’re getting your worst grades or your dating life’s going badly for you, you have to look and say, okay, this is an opportunity for me to grow and that God has opened the door for me to grow. I think we can end with this scripture, 2 Corinthians 12:9, 

but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 

Our weaknesses are God’s opportunity. And so when you look at what are spiritual life skills, they’re the skills you develop to help you not be overwhelmed. They’re the skills that help you develop, that you want to get help developing, and that if you develop they can help you overcome emotional challenges. Meaning when life is a bleak and overwhelming, spiritual life skills are skills you can use to improve your relationship, to handle having one new kid, or two new kids, or three new kids, or five new kids if you don’t know how to stop and protect yourself. So yeah, that’s it, that’s it. You maybe you got a, you you go, I made a mistake right there, I have nine now. And then if we look at all those skills and all those abilities, we can have hope that whether we’re a student, whether we’re a professional, whether we’re as Christian and Michelle are talking about, we’re new parents or whether we’re veterans of however many kids and grandchildren we have, every situation we’re in is an opportunity to grow and gain new skills. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Remember to like and subscribe our podcast, help us get to more and more people and look out for our next podcast, which is How Does Spiritual Life Skills Change Our Lives? 

Russ Ewell

Today we’re going to talk about how the spiritual life skills change our lives.

For most of us, we reach a point in our life where we have a goal, we have a dream, and we want to be able to make that dream come true. And today I’m going to talk with Christian and Michelle Giron, as well as Mike Query, about how spiritual life skills can change our lives. And I think one of the ways it can change our lives overall is it can help us make dreams come true. It can help us reach goals. And so we’re going to jump into that before we do. Let me read this scripture, because it’s a great scripture to set us up. James 1 verses 2 through 4 in the voice translation. 

Don’t run from tests and hardships brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them. If you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure.

How do spiritual life skills change our lives? Christian and Michelle, why don’t you help us out with that and give us an idea? How do those spiritual life skills change our lives?

Christian Giron

I think one of the biggest ways my life was changed was scripture Mark 10:27 is what really helps me, it says, 

Jesus looked at them intently and said, humanly speaking, it is not impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God. 

It’s my favorite scripture and I think the life skills, mainly, a big one really taught me is how to not quit, because I think for myself and my character, until I am, I’m naturally.

What’s the easiest way I want to quit? When I played basketball, I played all four years in high school, junior year, we get there. You know, I was supposed to play a lot more. Like I was there, I was playing varsity my sophomore year. And then the next year, the coach is like you and my neighbor. He was one of the best players. He was like, you guys are to be run the show. And I was like, all right, sounds good. And then, you know, I played good in the summer. First 10 games, I like played like a few minutes. And I remember being like, what the heck? And was like, you know, this love basketball is like love of my life, you know, at the time. And I was like, you know, I quit. I don’t want to do this anymore. I remember turning in my jersey. I lied to the coach and said I was going to work on school. But that was not the reason. So I quit because that’s who I am. So I think the life skills helped me to taught me how to not give up because without God, without the life skills that I’ve been trained with, whether through friends, family, mentors, God. That’s what I usually tend to do is to quit. So I think when I read that scripture in Mark 10, it helps me remember, man, nothing’s impossible with God. I don’t have to quit. There’s always a way out. There’s always a vision. There’s always another avenue I can choose rather than just throwing my hands up and being like, you know what? I don’t want to do this anymore. Michelle’s actually helped me a lot in that. She’s very resilient. So there’s times where I want to stop and I’m like looking at her, I’m like okay, she’s got no stop in her, you have to make her stop. So I think whether it’s the scriptures or friendships, I think one of the life skills that’s really helped me is to persevere and to not quit.

Russ Ewell

So the lessons you learned from basketball, how did that help you as your life went forward?

Christian Giron 

You know, school didn’t come easy to me, I think. So I went to junior college. That was mainly, well, mainly a money thing also I just, okay, let me figure out what I want to do. So when I got to school, I think I did study kinesiology at St. Mary’s and you know, I was a lot of, it was like all science classes. So I’m, I know a lot of classes are hard, but I was like, for me, I was like, man, there’s a lot going on in here. And so the different, different times I was like, I don’t know what we’re doing. I was like, how do you remember all this? So the times where I wanted to quit, the times where I like, I can’t do school. I should change my major. I should figure something else out. The life skills helped me to see what the end goal was and who God wanted me to become and how I can use the different talents I had to help other people. so it helped me to not give up and it helped me to pursue education, to finish, to not quit. That’s a life skill learned in all relationships as well.

Russ Ewell 

So would you say that…You described it as a failure, I’m not sure it was. You described the basketball quitting as a failure, but could that have been a turning point in your life where giving up something you really loved left enough pain that it made you remember that it would have been better to finish than to live with that pain of quitting. And as a result, you now have graduated from a really great university, St. Mary’s. I don’t know about that basketball program. 

I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Christian Giron 

Top 20. 

Russ Ewell

I said that to annoy you.

Christian Giron

I know you did.

Russ Ewell 

but they’ve got a great basketball program. It’s a great school. A lot of people on the East Coast Midwest may not know about it, but it’s on par with schools like if you’re a Midwestern or Oberlin and Brandeis and East Coast. It’s got a great sports program. It’s in an awesome space, but you graduated from there and then you’re working in multiple roles and really great jobs helping people both helping younger people both in their basic fundamental life helping, kids with special needs. You’re also helping develop leaders, people that are leaders in the community, whether it’s in programs that help kids that experience inclusion or help kids become leaders in the community at large. So it seems to me that the lesson you learn from that moment of pain and disappointment with basketball and quitting that forged your character in you to say it’s worse to quit than it is to endure the pain to finish. Would that be accurate?

Christian Giron 

Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, honestly, I didn’t really think about it that fully until you just said it. Because I always saw it as a failure. I’m like, I quit. Until now, I’ve looked back at it and was like, oh, that’s a moment I wish I could go back and change. But when you talk about the pain of it, was like, even now, there’s moments, I mean, every week, maybe every day, while I’ve thought of quitting. But I think what helps me keep going, like what you said, is knowing that.

The regret, I think the regret stings, you know? The regret is like, I wish I could go back and do something different. So that was a big moment to actually to look at, like, okay, I can… it’s much better to persevere. Hebrews 12 is a scripture that comes to mind that I read all the time before training of any sorts, you know? Okay, it feels painful right now, but where’s God trying to help me get to? So yeah.

Russ Ewell 

Well, I think that a lot of people process

Things as failure or success, I know I do. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that some things are stepping stones to get where you need to be. And someone could argue, well, it would have been better for you to finish playing basketball. Well, I don’t know that. I don’t know. You could have finished playing basketball and thought you were going to be a pro and gone and try to play basketball in college and ended up not becoming a pro and quitting college and never graduating. there’s a path you could have taken.

Christian Giron 

Yeah, yeah, it’s true.

Russ Ewell

And that’s why I think it’s important. I’m gonna look something up real quick, because I think you’ll find this, I hope I can find it, I think you’ll find this fascinating. There’s a book by Daniel H. Pink, he’s a great thinker in society called The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.

And to me, what you’re talking about is not a negative regret, though you view it that way. It’s a positive regret I think that’s something that your life exemplifies and that if you can, you’re communicating that to people that are listening. think there are lot of people out there that feel like, if I had have done that or if I hadn’t have done this. And I think the world is punishing on failure because the world has a wrong view of failure and the world has a wrong view of regret because the world doesn’t see growth the way God sees growth. In the world, we see things as success or failure, as forward or backward. We don’t see it as growth. And one of the interesting things, and I’ve talked about this before, with Eastern thinking versus Western thinking, and this is true to a degree of Native American thinking, it’s one of the unfortunate things about what happened in Native American culture, is they don’t think linear. And many of them, I don’t have the proper language, I’m not an expert in those areas, I just read a lot about it, they think more circular. So if you think circular, your life is moving around in growth. And so there’s not something that said, Western people think point A, point B, point C, and that’s not necessarily how everybody thinks. And I think it’s a really important thing for people that are young to grasp that failure is part of success. And I know Michelle, you probably know a lot about that, having worked with lot of students, as well as obviously you have your own experiences about how negative emphasizing failure can be, to being a, for people being able to grow in their life going forward. And sometimes even as Christians, we’re so focused on our sin and our failure, which I’m not afraid to talk about sin. And I think it’s important to deal with it, but we have to see it as a launching pad, you know, instead of a graveyard. Those are not necessarily an awesome analogy, but it, think a lot of times we just bury ourselves in our, in our guilt and our failure instead of saying, wait a minute, that’s just the foundation for me to go off and do great things. And that’s what I see with you. mean, the way you talk Christian people might not have realized, man, you’ve given to an awesome university and even the way you did it step by step you and that’s part of learning how to grow. Go to a junior college now here in California. Junior colleges are profoundly good and great institutions. One of my favorites is Foothill. I didn’t go there but I used to go there to work out but you know but when I was there I was amazed at the way that they develop students and so part of what you’re telling kids out there maybe who don’t think they can go to college don’t think they can graduate from college don’t think they can get past their failures is no no no you’re wrong you just have to break it down into small steps.

Russ Ewell 

Michelle, let me get let you get in here and then I think Mike might have a question after you get done talking.

Michelle Giron

Yeah, so actually similarly, well, I wasn’t even planning to go to community college and ended up getting help from friends, getting a diagnosis, getting set up with services at school, did community college, transferred. So there were building steps there. Actually, I was a mentor at the time for teens. And I think having what you’re describing, I definitely have the failure mindset, the fear of failure. I’m very fearful person. But I think having a learner’s heart, because I would go with the spiritual or life skills of being willing to learn from God and learn from others. I was a mentor at the time and I learned from my teen who was a phenomenal writer and she does writing now. And she helped me. I’m in college mentoring her and she helped me. This is how you write an essay because I was starting from scratch.

And so, and I grew in my writing community college and then I get to St. Mary’s, I transferred to St. Mary’s and my first paper I turned in was, I got it back and the teacher wrote on it, didn’t even give me a grade, just said this was a slap in the face to the theorist, I had to rewrite it. And in that moment I was like, okay, here’s the next stepping stone. Like it’s time to level up. And then I went to the, they had a writing center at St. Mary’s. So then I was in there and to continue to grow with my writing. And I remember going and picking up my cap and gown and I just like cried. Cause I just knew in that moment, I was like, this is only God and all the help I got along the way. 

And then got more encouragement and went back to get my master’s degree there. And I got so much support along the way though with just Christian shared about it, but the scheduling, editing my papers, how to balance. I was commuting and working and trying to figure out, know, I had also had to be working at a school to fulfill my hours. So there was a lot going on, but I look at the training I got then and I do see, we talked about this last time, but how they build on each other where now I’m in a new stage, but God, I can use some of those skills that I had back then, even using them now. But yeah, I see the humility and the learning is like probably one of the biggest things, I think probably regardless of what stage you’re in, it’s just being like, I need help. And everyone has different strengths and weaknesses that we can learn from one another. So, yeah.

Russ Ewell 

Absolutely. Mike, you have question?

Mike Query 

Yeah, I was just wondering, because you, so you guys have a daughter and she’s, how old is she? I have another question after that, but how old is she right now? 

Christian Giron 

Almost a year and a half. It’s a weird to say.

Mike Query

Almost a year and a half. Yeah, she’s she’s she’s she like lights up the room. I saw her the other day. She’s like super sweet. But no, was, you know, I have a seven year old and I feel like I can.

Mike Query 

You were just talking about, you guys were talking about the regret and the quitting. How do I overcome adversity and stuff? And I feel like I just face like every day some level of insecurity. Like, did I do that wrong? Especially when she’s really little. Like, me and my wife were getting fights. do we feed the wrong thing? You know, like, why would you give that? You know, all that. So I’m wondering, if you can, like, like how have you guys maybe connected some of these lessons you’ve learned from these big moments in your life about how God’s trying to develop these skills and you help you not quit and persevere. Just like day to day stuff. Doesn’t have to be just parenting. But that’s sort of my life point and your life point I mean it could be a lot of things but like how are you kind of applying those lessons? Just in day-to-day stuff with each other or just you know as you go to like sort of persevere not quit and then what does it look like when It’s very obvious that you need help and how is it you know, maybe it affects you guys relationship I don’t know my wife and I it affects our relationship when I’m not dealing with these things, you know, so anyway, I don’t know if that’s clear enough, but Can I speak to that a little bit?

Michelle Giron 

Definitely. Yeah. No, I was laughing because I was like, mom guilt. I feel like that is huge all the time. Too much screen time, too much this. then, you know, I mean, online, they tell you everything. You can’t win. It’s like one thing, you know, when you’re comparing online. But I don’t know. I do think even recently we’ve been getting a lot of help of just how to parent, how to do life. So. Again, I think going back to the being willing to have to learn. Because I think when we end up, stun our growth when we don’t have the mind. mean, Russ talked about the growth mindset of I’m going to continue to learn. I don’t know if that answers your question, but.

Mike Query 

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, I can definitely feel like I have to have figured it out. And if I haven’t, I’ve failed. know, Russ was talking about the failure. So sometimes my mind definitely relate on every one thing online. And it’s like I’ve got like six fail thoughts that just like immediately. So yes, I relate.

Christian Giron 

I think I can answer that one. What was the question? I forgot it.

Mike Query

I’m just, I’m wondering how to connect just your awesome job sharing about these big moments in your life as you’ve come up about like adversity, how you’ve kind of overcome. I’m just wondering like today, just day to day kind of thing when the temptation to quit or feel discouraged about something comes up, how do you, how have you applied those lessons to like persevere and to grow and to not have this, you know, the wrong kind of thinking about how are you applying it today?

Christian Giron

Yeah, I mean I think there’s a lot of different ways. think comes to mind is prayer. I think prayer helps a lot. I was in college, didn’t really know what I was feeling. Could tell you three emotions maybe. Happy, angry, and annoyed. I don’t know, I didn’t think it much. I remember getting, I don’t remember what the situation was, but you Google emotions chart and I’d pull up this little picture and there’s all these little faces. You know, it’s funny, but it helped me, these 20 emotions with faces. And I was like, oh, I didn’t know what I felt. And I looked at it and I was like, well, I feel angry. I feel afraid. And I could be able to pray and verbalize why. I think being honest with God and with friends helps lighten the load a lot because I think there’s a lot going on in my head, a lot going on in my heart. And she’s really great at just talking about it. I’m great at hiding it. Not wanting to talk about it. So I think prayer through talking about just what’s going on in my mind and my heart and being able let that out. They’ll be able to help me to be able to focus on what’s most important. Because otherwise, when I’m just trapped by guilt or regret or whatever it may be, I just get really selfish. And I just think about what I’m doing and what I got to get done.

I don’t really care what you got going on. I got this thing, I still do that now even with having our daughter, Michelle, will like need my help. But then my anxiety can drown her out because I’m like, no, I can’t, I got to do this. And it’s a thing that there’s always something that comes up. And so learning how to prioritize what’s most important to God, God and family first. So I think that helps.

Russ Ewell

One thing we’ve learned today for sure is that spiritual life skills can change our lives and I appreciate Christian and Michelle sharing about their journey because it’s really inspiring and the fact that we don’t have to regret our failures. We don’t have to look at them as a problem. And even with what Mike shared about, kids are resilient. And all of us have parents who they were awesome, mine were awesome, but no parent does everything right. That’s the whole point. Kids have to grow. And so life is about growth. When life doesn’t become about, when life doesn’t remain about growth, it becomes about survival. And when life’s only about survival, it’s pretty miserable. And so it’s important for all of us to seek a relationship with God and allow

God to work on our lives through the victories, through the failures, through the struggles, to have those qualities we’ve talked about, and let Him change our life by giving us the spiritual skills to manage it and even to conquer it. We hope you’ll tune in for our next episode about how do we teach spiritual life skills, and we’re going to talk about how we can help each other grow and how we can find mentors, something that Christian and Michelle have talked about throughout the podcast series here that we’re doing together. And so make sure you pay attention to that. Don’t forget to subscribe. Don’t forget to like. And also, if you have a comment, if something today spurred your thinking, or even in some of the other episodes, go back and make a comment and let us know maybe what you wanted to hear more about, or maybe your own experience, whatever that may be. Thanks for listening and we’ll be able to see you again in our next episode that comes up in the very near future.

Russ Ewell:

How do we teach spiritual life skills? You know, it’s been a lot of fun having Christian and Michelle join Mike and I for the podcast, which we’ve already talked about. What are spiritual life skills? How do spiritual life skills change our lives? But we want to get practical and want to talk about, well, okay. How do we teach each other life skills? How do we help each other? And it may be that you have a mentor who’s sitting down with you and showing you how to develop them. But some of the most awesome experiences I’ve had in my life have been with friends of mine from high school on who have had skills I didn’t have and they taught me and I had skills they didn’t have and I taught them and we grew together. Let’s read two scriptures. 

Hebrews 12:11

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening. It’s painful. But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. 

The Bible teaches us that God is trying to train us. And here’s the important thing. He’s not training us just to make us into something. God doesn’t need anything from us. I think we make the mistake of thinking, well, why is God doing this to me? God, everything God does is to our benefit. So he’s training us because there’s something in store for us that’s pretty awesome. Romans 8.28 talks about, works all things together for the good. In the voice translation it says, he works all things out really so we can have a beautiful life. And I think we have to remember that what we’re doing today has very little to do with what we’re going to receive in the future. Meaning, it’s a building block. It’s not the whole event. 

In 1 Corinthians 9:24 it says, all athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. 

1st Corinthians 9:24-27 talks about running the race. And so we want to talk about how do we teach spiritual life skills? And I’m going to bring Mike in in just a minute to talk about it, but we’ve got six ways to do that. 

Number one, inspire others by sharing your life, your journey, and how your development of particular life skill helped you reach a goal or see a dream come true to inspire them that they can develop that same skill and gain that same benefit. 

Number two, break things down into steps. We like to call this spiritual incrementalism, allowing it to happen patiently and trusting that if you build over time, you’ll not only have momentum, but you’ll reach the goal. 

Number three, encourage daily. Consistent connection matters. We’ve got to have people cheering us on. You know, in an early episode, we were talking about sports and I remember all of our sports had cheerleaders. Well, that’s important because even in sports when you’re on the field, it can get discouraging. It’s nice to hear the fans screaming and yelling to support you. That’s what we need to do for each other. Encourage daily. 

Number four, face-to-face relationships. In this technological age in which we live, we have a tremendous amount of emotional disconnection because we’re trying to connect often using tools instead of face-to-face relationships. There is no replacement for a face-to-face relationship. 

Number five, celebrate small wins. That’s a hard one for me. But, you know, they have this old phrase called stop and smell the roses. I don’t do that very well. But it’s real important for being able to grow. To not look at small wins as irrelevant. As a parent who special needs kids, it’s helped me to be able to, and I do it, all the time to celebrate small wins, because to me small wins are big wins. 

Number six, evaluate growth after 30 days. Many studies will tell you if you can sustain something for 30 days it’ll become part of your character. 

So let me get Mike in here to talk about the ones that he thinks are important, and that he can give you some tips maybe on how to teach those skills, and then we’ll bring in Christian and Michelle.

Mike Query 

Yeah, know, the list is awesome. I think that first one, you can’t emphasize enough, inspired by sharing your life. You know, I can’t you the times I’ve tried to, I put pressure on myself. I’m trying to train or pass on some knowledge or coach or what manage and I just see eyes glazing over when I’m trying to like give some info do this do this or even take like my daughter when I was teaching her ride a bike I tell her the mechanics you go this this is how you balance and she’s just but the second I started telling her about like all the times I’ve fallen down you know like falling on to get my first cut and everything she and her eyes light up she’s like really you know and you can see that confidence kind of go up and it was like it’s not just me I think this the same thing in relationships when you’re trying to the more you can share about adversity, how I overcame and just, it’s helped me the times even in marriage, like when we’ve been in fights. I first time Amy and I sat down with a couple and they, we were so riled up because we had gotten in a fight and we sat down and we shared about our fight like, oh man, what are they gonna say? And they just like paused and just laughed like, oh man, we got in like five fights like this month about that same thing. You know, and I think it just is like a disarming effect that it has when you share and then you get the hope after we, here’s what we did to overcome. So I mean, that’s the first one that jumped out to me.

I feel like the one that I needed just a lot of help with was that second one too, the breaking things down into steps. I know me, I get overwhelmed looking at the big picture. It’s something my wife helps me with, executive function, it’s a weakness of mine. I feel like if you’re trying to help someone, just looking at the big picture first, but then sitting down like, okay, let’s break this down. And then you can go what’s manageable and how do we put times on each one of those. It helps with scheduling, it helps with just planning things out, setting goals and everything. So I think just those first two right out the gate, even starting with those, it’s going to go a long way towards helping someone go from A to B and helping them grow in a life skill.

Russ Ewell 

I want you to talk a little bit more, Mike. First of all, you said executive functioning. Not all of our listeners know what you’re talking about when you say executive functioning is hard for you. And what does that have to do with teaching or learning?

Mike Query 

Yeah, I mean for me the the way I’ve come to understand executive functioning is just you know the ability to plan, focus, look at tasks and be able to have some sort of system to accomplish them or tackle them. I look at a list and my first reaction is to get overwhelmed and just looking the other way. It’s very difficult for me to, okay, this can be done tomorrow. These two things can be done today. This is what we kind of have time for. And when I’m not tackling the stuff, when I’m not getting help, it usually comes out in, I’m leaving late, I’m missing assignments, like these kinds of things.

Russ Ewell 

How does it affect your ability to teach or how does it affect people’s ability to learn? In other words, we’re talking about how do we teach spiritual life skills. So what I’m thinking when you were talking about it is that that gets in the way sometimes. And I was thinking  there are a lot of people out there that, I don’t know that everybody has executive functioning challenges, but they, know, organize, like me, I’m one of the, I find that I don’t have a lot of people like me that I love lists, I love creating them, I calm down when I make lists, I work, you know, like that kind of thing. So I don’t know that I’m better or worse at executive functioning. I think we are just different people. But I think it would be helpful for you to just talk about like when it comes to teaching peers life skills, because there people out there listening going, I have a hard time teaching anybody anything because I don’t think I’m any good at anything or I don’t know how. I mean, my mom was a teacher. So I realized now as I’ve gotten older that the way she raised me had elements of it the way a teacher would teach students. And so I learned to learn from her. And as a result of being taught like that, when I became in high school, I was selected to be one of the coaches for fifth and sixth graders. So I was on a team, the team, and the coach picked some guys to coach players. And when I coached a team, they were undefeated. We killed everybody. And it was because I didn’t realize I had been taught to teach. And I’m grateful for my mom for that, but I was thinking there people out there going, I don’t know how to teach and you sound like you’re saying teaching isn’t easy for you. What are some of the things people can do to overcome that? And how do you work at that to be able to teach people your own age? I mean, the kid thing is great, but I think a lot of people don’t have kids or their kids are gone or you know, whatever. They’re trying to figure out how do I teach a friend? How do I teach a peer? How can I learn from a friend? How can I learn from, does that make sense?

Mike Query 

Yeah, I think so. mean, one of the things in the time management organization study that I was working on was, you know, starting at the spiritual level, first identifying for me, I usually either am avoiding something, meaning I want to run away, just keep the can down the road, procrastinate, or I’m feeling stuff and I over plan. That’s when I start, you know, trying to do too many things just to feel good. So I think the first was just the self-awareness part is understanding, OK, what’s what’s going on with me so that I can actually make a plan without being either too avoidant or too over-scheduling. So I think once usually when I’ve done that spiritual work, I can sit down, look at everything on my schedule and just start to map things out. So I think if I’m trying to help a peer, usually try to have a conversation with them first if we’re really sitting down and going, hey, what’s what’s going on? How are we doing? If we have that kind of relationship, right? Like how are you feeling about everything on your plate right now? Is there anything you’re are you are you anxious? Is that coming out and distracting or is your calendar completely overbooked because you’re trying to do too many things right now. And I think once we got there, at least that’s what I kind of learned from there, everything else just got a little bit easier because I’m not, I don’t have 50 things piled up because I’ve been avoiding them and I don’t have like 50 things I need to cancel because I overbooked. And I think things got a lot more manageable once I start getting to that place where I’m dealing with my heart before diving into the calendar.

Russ Ewell 

So you’re saying, before I can teach anybody effectively, I have to be able to get my own life in order, so that I can go in there and I can actually be thinking about the other person and helping the other person. I think that’s probably what I learned from you. So a lot of people, Mike’s trying to say, hey, one of the reasons you may have a hard time teaching somebody else or giving to somebody else, is you have to spend a little bit more time getting your own life in order. Although I don’t want anybody out there to think, well, my life’s got to be in order before I can say anything. Actually, that’s not true. I think people learn best from people who are going through it, not people who only talk about it after they’ve been successful. Which of course, sounds like that’s what you do Mike, so that’s pretty cool. Christian and Michelle, what are your thoughts?

Christian Giron 

Yeah, I think the biggest way to teach someone is having empathy. And I think going through it with them, it’s easier, at least for me, if someone’s walking through something with me rather than, hey, go do this. And generally, for example, when I was in college, I had a friend who, there’s just different life schools he didn’t have. So one time we’d hang out every week, and one time he didn’t know how to parallel park. Not one time, he just didn’t know how. So I was like, hey, well, we’d go to Berkeley or different things where, I mean, you got no option really. So I was like, hey, we’re going to spend the next hour, and we’re just going to parallel park. Another thing was he didn’t know how to do laundry, which was fine. And I was like, OK, well, this is how We just sat there, and we just did it. And another friend, he needed a job. And I was like, all right, well, we’re going to go to the mall, and we’re going to go inside every store, and you’re going to ask who’s hiring. And so we went from the front to the end, and I was like, this is what we’re gonna do, you know, and it wasn’t, I needed–

Russ Ewell 

Did you buy anything while you were doing that, Christian? Did you? Yeah, I was helping a friend as I purchased things.

Christian Giron

If I had money, yes. Yeah, I was walking around like this, two backs, but exactly, but I think walking through someone with them, being in there in the moment, and not thinking you got it all together, I think, just being a friend, think, yeah, so.

Russ Ewell 

Yeah. And it sounds like you were breaking things down too for him. You know, I think when you get down to laundry, getting a job, that’s, you know, me, I would not always do that. I might sit there and tell him, okay, let’s plan out how to do your laundry, get a job, date, get married, have a child. Like I end up, and then people walk away, you know, frazzled, you know. So I like how you, one, you were personal. You went with him personally. I think a lot of times we don’t want to walk with somebody. We don’t like actually want to go do something with them. We want to sit at a table and say, here’s how you do it and hand them a piece of paper or send them an email or a text, or just listen to them talk about how they’re frustrated and go good luck instead of saying, no, I need to go with them. I need to show them how. And a lot of that is parenting. What I find in my experience and many people who’ve taught me how to parent and as I’ve learned to parent, parenting is about getting in the trenches with your kid and going through it all, which is really hard on my selfishness personally. But when you get in there, that’s the only way to learn. And for those who played sports and Mike’s a musician, for those of us who’ve had to learn something, the only way is you have a coach. I remember, and you remember this Christian learning how to shoot, right? And I remember I’d have to make the window. You know, you got to make the window so you see through it. And I had a coach constantly hitting me on the elbow going, get that elbow in, because I would have that elbow out there. And he kept tapping it. He’d go, shoot, he’d hit it. Not hit it hard, he’d just tap it. And I think sometimes we think people are going to learn by us giving speeches. And I know in churches that happens a lot. People get up and they, that sermon was awesome. But if someone doesn’t actually personally get involved with you the way you did, then you can’t learn it. So that’s fantastic. You nailed a lot of them. Inspire by sharing your life. Mike hit that a lot. But you nailed break things down into steps, encourage daily and face to face relationship. That’s awesome. Michelle, come on in there and help us out.

Michelle Giron 

Yeah, I think the the one that stood out to me was the face-to-face because I think the Having the hard conversations to with friends like that’s part of being on the ground I got help with it’s not even necessarily hard conversations. It’s just walking through sometimes people just have to talk through things and they even figure it out I had times where when I was trying to figure out what school to go to you like I had a friend that sat with me and we wrote down all the pros and cons right and looked at things spiritually and where I was gonna get the most supports and that was just one of my best friends that did that at the time with me and it helped me pick a college. And then dating, same thing. I had spiritual conversations where they’re like, is that person really helping you or do you just want them to help you because you wanna date them? I those kind of spiritual conversations…

Russ Ewell 

That was Christian.

Girons 

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that was Christian helping me out. But I think that, yeah, I liked that on the ground. I think it’s true. Like a lot, if I look back, it was a lot of just conversations and helping people draw out my heart, even getting what I’m really thinking out. So I think that’s huge when you’re trying to teach somebody is you have to know what’s first inside, right? Because I can do that to you where I’m coming up with my list of do this, this and this. And I don’t even know what they’re thinking or how they’re processing or how they learn. And so I do think the drawing people out, what’s really inside and then also helping teaching each other, okay, let’s think spiritually about this. Let’s think about your life, you know, and what’s best for your life. Cause it’s gonna look different for everybody, right? So, yeah.

Russ Ewell

I think it’s fantastic. You know the the final two really are celebrate small wins and evaluate growth after 30 days. Celebrating small wins is really very important and sometimes I make this mistake a lot. I’ve got such a big goal that I want to help someone reach, or I’ve got a big goal I want to reach, that I don’t celebrate small wins and so I end up feeling like I’m making no progress. And so it’s important that we celebrate small wins and so I would encourage people out there especially if you’re working with a teenager or a college student, instead of saying, can’t believe you can’t do that yet, try, hey, at least you’re aware of the fact that you don’t do it. And you can begin to make progress that way. And as Christians, the Bible teaches us the fruit of the Spirit is patience. And I have to work on this all the time. I’m not a patient person by nature. And even with the Holy Spirit, I’m still wrestling with it. But what I’ve seen with the power of patience is you can help people grow immensely. And what helps me is to look back on how long it took me to get to certain places and the people in my life. And so let’s remember to celebrate small wins. And for those of you who may be younger, let’s say you’re in your mid or early 20s, many times we’re so ambitious for what we want to have happen for ourselves. We don’t realize that some of the biggest lessons you’re going to learn in life that will help you be successful is what you give to others, not just what you do for yourself. And then evaluate growth after 30 days. I do think you’ll find that the studies are correct. That if you can sustain an effort for 30 days, it’s going to stick, at least more than likely it will stick. So how do we teach spiritual life skills? There’s six things we’ve talked about. We’re not going to go super in-depth anymore, but you can take these and you can build on them. 

Number one, inspire by sharing your life. 

Number two, break things down into steps. Spiritual incrementalisms, what we like to call that.

Number three, encourage daily. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be positive. I mean, it doesn’t have to be like, you did it, you succeeded. Sometimes it can be a conversation that Michelle described, where it’s an honest conversation about, hey, you didn’t even try. You can’t say you’re a failure, you haven’t tried yet, but encourage daily. And then there’s also obviously the encouragement that we’ll talk about on the fifth point. 

Number four, face to face relationships. I thought that was powerful what both Christian and Michelle shared about that. It’s easy to want to mail it in and just sort of say, here, you you can do great, here’s my text, or I’m going to send you five emojis, or I’m going to send you a GIF, you know, and I helped them, I really supported them. I don’t think GIFs are, you the only thing that GIFs good for when it comes to encouragement is peanut butter. That’s a whole other discussion. 

But then number six, evaluate growth by 30, after 30 days. You know that means? That means we’ve got to be willing to stick with each other for 30 days on something. And that’s, in other words, you know, we talk about being professional quitters. It isn’t just being a professional quitter ourselves. Sometimes we’re professionals at quitting on other people. 

And so, if we can take these six steps, practical ways to teach spiritual life skills, I think we’ll receive the encouragement of seeing ourselves grow, but even more, we’ll get the encouragement of seeing others grow. I want to thank Christian and Michelle for being a part of our podcast. We kind of made a little series here that we think will help a lot of people and give them a lot of inspiration. As always, Mike and I enjoy delivering these to you. 

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